“As I told the quarterbacks, we need to be better than how we played on Saturday. Those guys all prepare as if they are going to be starters and I think that’s the mentality that you have to have especially at the quarterback position because you never know. We have lived that life before so they all have to prepare. Whether it’s Caleb Rowe, whether it’s Ricardo Young, whether it’s Perry Hills, any of those guys are what we call ‘green lighted to play’ will always have to prepare as if they are one or two plays away from being in the ball game.”On quarterback Caleb Rowe’s performance on Saturday:

“I think he did okay. Obviously, when you don’t win it’s hard to say anyone did well. I’m sure he’ll be the first to tell you we made a lot of mistakes at the quarterback position. We left some plays on the field and had opportunities to score points; we came up short especially in the red-zone area. There were three or four different opportunities that if you go back and watch the tape there are guys that are open that we need to get the ball to. So as a coach, I want to get those things cleaned up and give us a chance.”

On Clemson’s defense:

“They are talented on defense. They are really high in the nation in a lot of areas that we aren’t really good at right now. Third down defense, they are one of the top teams. They lead the nation in sacks, tackles for loss, they are up there and all those different categories. So for us, we have got to find a way to get going on offense. We have opportunities where we move the ball and then the turnover bug has really kicked in for us offensively, which for me is very disappointing. We need to pride ourselves on not beating ourselves. That’s why for me from the quarterback standpoint we aren’t as sharp as we need to be, and that’s all of us, starting with me down. We need to find a way to right that ship first, with taking care of the football, not beating ourselves and obviously our execution needs to be better.”

On if there is an added emphasis on ball control this week to counteract Clemson’s offense:

“We are going to do whatever it takes to win a ball game, so for us it starts with execution. People throw around the words ball control, for us that means executing, sustaining some drives and that means we have to better on third downs. That means you have to execute well on first and second to get some manageable situations. So we are going to focus on taking care of the football, not turning it over, and not putting our defense in bad field position situations like we did last week.”On wide receiver Amba Etta-Tawo:

“Being a young guy, obviously he has great length. We like to have a guy 6-foot-3 out there on the edge and he’s on the backside playing “X”. He’s on the backside of the 3-by-1 sets that we get into and because of his length and size, and he’s a guy that has above average speed, he can quietly get up on you with his speed. He catches everything and he’s a physical blocker at the point of attack.”

Defensive Coordinator Brian Stewart

On slowing down Clemson’s offense:

“Get off the field on third downs and be good on the early downs. That’s what’s been hurting us recently, we just have to be better on third downs.”On the defense’s lack of production on third downs recently:

“Right now we’re just snake bitten in some areas. They pick up the pressure; we don’t cover the guy here. It’s just a lot of different reasons.”On the decrease in turnovers in recent weeks:

“I think it’s everything. For one, some of the teams that we’re playing are pretty dynamic offensively. Two, we aren’t putting any pressure on them as far as third downs, getting off the field and that’s where we got a lot of the pressure as well as our interceptions. So I think we just need to get better on third down and force them to throw the ball deep a little more and do some things, and then attack the ball in the air and get closer to the quarterback.”On getting back on the practice field following a loss from a coaching standpoint:

“When you don’t get off the field on third downs and you aren’t as good on the run or some element of the game that you want to be, you can’t wait to get on the practice field to get those corrections done and then get onto the opponent and then look at those things corrected.”

On defensive back Zach Dancel:

“He wants to be good. And when players want to be good they do the little things. They look at extra tape try to look at themselves and then when they see some little idiosyncrasies they are man enough to ask the coach, ‘Hey, I see that I do this, how can I stop doing something like that?’ And that’s what he does. He is very conscientious about things like that, especially watching himself on tape, and now the preparation period, when watching the other teams on tape he is conscientious with that, he’s right in there with the other guys. He just brings a very mature approach to the game.”On linebacker Abner Logan:

“When you redshirt and you don’t actually get in the game, you don’t know the speed. There are a lot of things you don’t know until you get out there and I just think that’s he’s done a good job. I think Coach Dudzinski has done a good job with him in just the way he goes through the teaching progression so he can pick things up easy and understand what we’re doing. Between Coach Dudzinski tutoring as well as him maturing he’s just done a good job getting to the point he is now.”